The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(21)
“Sounds like you know more about how magic works than you let on.”
“I know what I know. But it makes sense, don’t it? Like Sidra said, maybe our fates are tied up together somehow.” The cat purred and rubbed his body against Yvette’s leg. “Even he thinks I’m onto something.”
“May I take a look?”
Yvette handed over the soft leather book, her eyes wide with expectation. Though Elena had put on a fancy dress for the city, the smell of the vineyard still oozed from her skin—musty, earthy, a tinge of oak and red wine. Something else was there, too, like the scent of one of those flowering plants that lure you in with their fragrant petals, daring you to lean in closer to experience their beauty, even knowing a single seed held within could stop your heartbeat in an instant. Yvette didn’t trust most people, but she’d thought this one was all right. It was Elena, after all, who’d saved her from going back to prison even knowing she wasn’t exactly innocent.
“Can you feel it, the buzzing?”
“The words hum for you?” Elena had been turning the pages slowly, running her finger over the raised gold paint that adorned some of the letters. She shook her head. “I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary, but if it’s yours, and only yours, the magic might only speak to you.”
The comment stopped her breath in her chest. Yvette had never once believed there could be anything in the world meant only for her. “What do you think it means?”
Elena thumbed through the pages again, back and forth as if affirming something. “I’m not quite sure, but I’m not convinced it’s a spell book. I’ve never seen markings like these, at least not in any grimoire I’m familiar with. The odd part is the pattern.”
“Repeated sevens. I saw that too.”
“Precisely. Which makes me wonder if it isn’t something else. Like you said, a diary or book of debts of some sort?”
The booklet couldn’t be a boring old diary, not with such a strong infusion of magic beckoning to her.
“But the tingling energy when I hold it . . . Elena, you have to help me with this. You have to help figure out what the symbols mean. This book is the only thing I’ve got that my mother ever touched. It has to mean something.”
“I’d help if I could, only I’m visiting the city briefly with Jean-Paul. We’re staying with his mother—”
“Weren’t you the one who told me how important a witch’s intuition is in magic? Well, mine is telling me this means something. But it’s also bigger than I can deal with on my own. You’ve got to help me figure out what it is.”
At the bottom of the lane a man’s voice called out for Elena—her man, the one she remembered from the cellar. Desperation sped Yvette’s breathing.
“Look, I can’t leave the city until my wish comes true. Sidra told me so. But I don’t know how much longer I can keep hiding from les flics. I have to know why my mother left this for me. This book is the key to finding out who she was, who I’m supposed to be—I know it is. And I know you’re the only one who can help me. Your being here has to be fate.”
The man called out again for Elena, heightened worry creeping into his voice. The cat mewed and swished his tail, his green eyes intent on Elena. The vine witch smirked at the animal before smoothing her fingers over the cracked leather cover and exhaling.
“Very well. But we don’t have much time. You have to promise me, if we do this, you’ll do as I say.”
Yvette stuck out her hand, willing to risk contact with the poisonous innards of the beautiful bloom to get what she wanted. “Deal.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
One week. It wasn’t much time to teach a hotheaded na?f how to wield her magic, discover the code to her mother’s diary, and fulfill the demands of a stolen wish, but that’s what fate had given them. Because that’s how long Marion Martel believed it would take for Elena to sit for the artist’s portrait.
Elena finished brushing her hair out before bed, then opened a jar of face cream she’d infused earlier with a few of the crushed rose petals she’d plucked from the city garden. The botanical scent was heavenly as she smoothed it over her face, whispering a self-indulgent charm to fend off the sooty effect of the city’s dirty air. The curse she’d suffered from had weakened her magic for a time, but as much as she hated to admit it, the constant sloughing of skin as a toad had left her with a renewed blush in her cheeks.
She stared at her reflection, tilting her chin to see what an artist might see. Yes, she’d meant to refuse the portrait, seeing little point in a witch having a painting done of herself if the artist was a mortal. Their vision fell short of capturing the complete form. There was never any attempt to portray the spirit, only the rough-skilled depiction of skin, bones, and hair beneath silken clothes. Perhaps with the accessory of a flower pressed to the nose. A photograph created a more accurate depiction. The verdict was still out on whether that particular form of portraiture was invented by a witch, though Elena suspected it was. Under the right circumstances, the camera was actually quite capable of revealing one’s true visage on film, sometimes even capturing the halo of one’s aura as a white, ghostlike shadow in the photograph. How would a mortal artist do that?
With a sigh she realized her original rationale for refusing the portrait verged on echoing the ugly refrain of the Magus Society fomenters by disparaging the shortcomings of mortals. Nevertheless, she now saw how she might benefit from Marion’s wedding present. The need to report daily to the butte under the guise of having her portrait completed ought to give her ample time to check in on Yvette. And so she’d accepted the gift and the opportunity to escape the city center for the rural annex atop the butte each morning during their visit.